Thursday, March 24, 2011
Forensics of Surround Sound & Frequencies
So I dreamed this up on the plane ride back from Detroit, and I have not had an opportunity to test it yet... which is driving me insane, because I simply can't wait to hear what this sounds like. The idea is to take a single recording (will experiment with all types of sounds, from really rich music, to sparse music, to environments, to simple speech, etc) and break it's frequency spectrum into 8 individual chunks. So should you listen to each of the 8 samples individually, one would sound like nothing but rumbly bass frequencies, one would sound muddy, one would sound tinny, one would sound like hissy static, etc. but all those sounds put together create what we hear... but what happens if you spread them out and surround yourself with them? does it significantly alter the sound? are we able to reassemble it, but in some sort of surround sound wash? or does the disruption of the natural arrangements of the frequencies give you some sort of new monster? The idea is to both experience this within the speaker array, and also to record the experience binaurally. this is what the array will look like:
I hope to have this up and running before the weekend is out, and will post recordings as soon as i have them. (remember to use headphones only!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That's really cool... why only headphones?
ReplyDeletebinaural recordings only translate in headphones. basically each side of the stereo field (left and right) represent exactly what a human ear would be hearing. so if you listen in speakers the two channels naturally mix and the effect is lost.
ReplyDeleteThis is great, binaural recordings really play with the senses too. How will you actually determine the sounds? Just on how you respond to them? What would happen if you continued to use the random selections?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHow is this affecting your thesis project?
ReplyDeleteProcess, concepts....
In my case I would like to see some of your experiments in public not just in the private space. I think you can grab diverse reactions, new idea processes and lot of diverse things.
I don't know if this makes sense?
hey -- I cannot wait for this to happen
ReplyDeletelet me know how it is progressing
i witnessed it in its first iteration... it sounded relatively coherent and "normal" but there was definitely a weirdness to it... i don't know what the weirdness was, perhaps the lag or the not-lining-up of frequencies... i think this will be the area where everything interesting happens. really cool project justin
ReplyDeleteyeah, i've got everything set up and ben and jo heard it for a bit. it reassembled itself pretty well, but there was definitely some phase cancellation going on. if you moved around the room it really felt weird at points (sometimes if you do the right manipulation it feels like your head is underwater, i'm not even kidding). this week i'm going to be building stands for my speakers to get them up off the floor so that i can get better sound direction. i'll probably do an initial recording tomorrow and post it here, but i'm worried about the sound really behaving appropriately with the speakers on the floor. but nonetheless, we'll get something sounding neat. my hope is to at least try two various types of music and a speaking voice tomorrow. there's a lot of technical mumbo jumbo that i'll go in to with spectral analysis of the frequencies to see how accurate things are, but i'll wait to explain all that once i have the actual recordings and imagery up.
ReplyDelete